so I'm confused...were they trying to get their kids in? Wasn't for either of them going 30 years ago?

Its for their kids. Sounds like in Lori Loughlins case, she paid hundreds of thousands thru a middleman to convince USCís crew coach to pretend he wanted her girls to play crew so they could get preferential admissions and bypass grades requirements despite the fact they had never played crew. The network of middlemen was busted by the FBI.

Like do you think the middleman just got $50 and slipped one of the $20s in with the regular application? I'm borderline fascinated with the possibilities of that one. What if it was like $40k? How stupid must the child in question be to require an elaborate bribe-scheme to get into USD? Have they literally been partially lobotomized?